Traditionally, digits have been used to identify specified quantities. They have been used to represent capital expenditures, revenues, phone numbers, social security numbers, distance, weight, age, etc. Standing alone, digits have no distinguishing character and are considered random, assignable and auxiliary tools. There is a need for digits like words to have inherent meaning and individuality.
Assigned digits are manmade and identify critical information in various contexts. There are numerous prior art methods for using digits in other areas such as encryption and programming. This random use of digits is an anonymous device to identify something else. The digits themselves have no inherent meaning or definition. There is a need for digits to become the subject of data with an inherent genome and history.
Using digital signatures for validating data is well known. However, such signatures are not valid indefinitely, but only during the validity periods of their authentication certificates. This presents a problem for numerical digits, which reside in financial documents, spreadsheets, reports, etc., and are stored on hard drives of computers, floppy discs, and other data storage means. At the present time, there is no method for creating a permanent and authenticable history in order to track the life path of a computerized numeric digit from its time of generation to deletion.
The history of a digit has never been more important to the success of the capital markets and the progression of the free world, free markets and the world economy. Under prior art accounting systems, digits have been randomly altered, changed, extracted, reported and transcribed. These prior art methods, however, invite error and fraud due to the level of discretion involved. One only has to look at the numerous reports of questionable accounting practices during the early period of the 21st Century to recognize that there is a considerable need to track the life history of numerical data. The importance of legitimate and accurate financial data has never been at a higher state of public awareness than it is today.
Numerous prior art solutions have been developed to ensure the integrity and non-repudiation of digital information, e.g., digital/electronic signatures, watermarks, and stamps. Each of these technologies has very similar functions, but is unique in its particular application. Digital/electronic signatures, a byproduct of Public Key Infrastructure, are used typically in signing documents, document clusters, and E-mail. Digital/electronic watermarks are used for verification and copyright protection. Digital/electronic stamps can use a combination of digital signatures and content preserving techniques to provide verification of photographic images.
There are numerous prior art systems for inserting a digital watermark in images, digital files, and video data; see, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,822,432, 6,111,990, 6,262,775, 6,268,866, 6,282,650, 6,389,152, 6,415,041, and 6,418,232. Basically, all prior art systems operate around the same concept. For example, digital watermarks alter a digital image to provide digital information supplied by the party who embeds the watermark. The embedded watermarks can be viewed with stand alone or plug in software to reveal either a unique identification code traceable to the copyright owner or copyright ownership information. These basic digital watermark systems can be broadly classified into two types. In one type, sampled digital values of waveform and pixels are processed, and the watermark is embedded therein. In another type, the digital data is divided into a plurality of small pixel blocks, and watermark information is embedded into the pixel blocks. This method is often referred to as the block division method. In this type, image data is divided into a plurality of small unit pixel blocks. Each of these small blocks has a size of N×N pixels. A watermark is added to the pixel block having the same block size of this unit pixel block. In this type, the watermark is undisturbed even if a portion of image data of one frame is extracted because its size is not smaller than that of the unit pixel block.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,727,092 discloses a method of embedding auxiliary information into the digital representation of host data created by a lossy compression technique.
None of these prior art technologies have been used to provide content/identity verification specific to electronically generated numeric digits. There is a need for a method and a system to establish a permanent and authentic history of a newly created numerical digit to enable one to track its life path from birth to retirement.